Our fountain should, I think, be
classical; simple, compact, with a choice inscription, the altar of a
Naiad.'
'And mamma shall make the design, and you shall write the
inscription,' said Venetia.
'And you shall be the nymph, child,' said Herbert.
They were now within a bowshot of the harbour, and a jutting cliff of
marble, more graceful from a contiguous bed of myrtles, invited them
to rest, and watch the approaching sunset.
'Say what they like,' said Herbert, 'there is a spell in the shores
of the Mediterranean Sea which no others can rival. Never was such a
union of natural loveliness and magical associations! On these shores
have risen all that interests us in the past: Egypt and Palestine,
Greece, Rome, and Carthage, Moorish Spain, and feodal Italy. These
shores have yielded us our religion, our arts, our literature, and our
laws. If all that we have gained from the shores of the Mediterranean
was erased from the memory of man, we should be savages. Will the
Atlantic ever be so memorable? Its civilisation will be more rapid,
but will it be as refined? and, far more important, will it be as
permanent? Will it not lack the racy vigour and the subtle spirit of
aboriginal genius? Will not a colonial character cling to its society,
feeble, inanimate, evanescent? What America is deficient in is
creative intellect.
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